Meadow

“Blissful Ignorance”

(Edition Records EDN 1025)

The Cardiff based label Edition Records run by pianist and composer Dave Stapleton and photographer Tim Dickeson has been one of the big success stories of British jazz over the last few years. Their exemplary production values and general muso friendliness have seen them build up an impressive roster of acts and a catalogue of innovative, high quality recordings.

Edition’s success and general ethos has seen them being compared, in some quarters at least, with Manfred Eicher’s legendary ECM label. That might seem a little premature, after all ECM recently celebrated its fortieth anniversary, but this exceptional album from the trio collectively known as Meadow goes a long way to validating those comparisons as Edition spreads its wings and enters the international arena.

Meadow comprises of three musicians closely associated with ECM, the Norwegians Tore Brunborg (tenor & soprano saxes) and Thomas Stronen (drums) plus the venerable British pianist John Taylor. The album was recorded in Norway at the famous Rainbow Studios, a venue indelibly associated with ECM, and was engineered by the great Jan Erik Kongshaug, so often Manfred Eicher’s right hand man. It could almost BE an ECM record- I’m very surprised that Eicher didn’t pick up on the project himself, apparently it first came out on a small independent label in Norway only- and the acquisition of the recording represents quite a coup for Edition. It’s a magnificent album, one that has already garnered a compelling amount of critical praise and one that even at this early stage can confidently be predicted to be among the frontrunners in the “Best of 2011” lists. It’s arguably Edition’s most significant release to date, one that should see them tapping in to the European, not just the UK, market. 

The young Tore Brunborg first came to prominence in the late 80’s/early 90’s as a sideman with Norwegian bassist and band leader Arild Andersen. In those days he was something of a Jan Garbarek clone but the mature Brunborg has developed a much warmer, more personal sound which has recently been heard to good effect on ECM recordings by pianist Tord Gustavsen (“Restored, Returned”  2009) and drummer Manu Katche (“Third Round” 2010). Perhaps even more significant was his contribution to his compatriot Ketil Bjornstad’s excellent “Remembrance” (ECM, 2010), an album deploying the same piano/saxophone/drums configuration (the great Jon Christensen was behind the kit) as the Meadow trio. It’s entirely possible that the Bjornstad album was one of the main inspirations for this current project with Brunborg the principal writer for Meadow, composing six of the album’s nine tracks.

Stronen is best known to UK audiences as co-leader, with British saxophonist Iain Ballamy, of the electro improvising group Food. There Stronen augments his drumming skills with an array of electronic devices but in Meadow his playing is entirely acoustic. It displays a whole new aspect of his talent; if he’s a sound sculptor with Food then here he exhibits more painterly qualities. There’s a textural quality about his playing with Meadow that recalls Christensen and Paul Motian at their best, everything is delicately nuanced but with a fine eye for detail, totally receptive to everything that is going on around him. 

In the autumn of his career pianist John Taylor just keeps on getting better and better. A stalwart of the UK scene in the 60’s and 70’s he now lives and works in Europe and has a long association with ECM, firstly with the group Azimuth (with singer Norma Winstone and trumpeter Kenny Wheeler), and subsequently as a sideman with Wheeler, Jan Garbarek and bassist Miroslav Vitous. In 2002 he recorded a magnificent trio album for the label, “Rosslyn”, accompanied by bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joey Baron. He later moved to the Italian Cam Jazz label where he recorded two more trio albums, “Whirlpool” and my personal favourite “Angel Of The Presence”. Both featured Swedish bassist Pale Danielsson and British drummer Martin France.

Taylor has long been admired in Europe for his magnificent playing, hence the determination of both Brunborg and Stronen to work with him. It was literally their shared desire to make music with Taylor that helped to inspire this project. Luckily he agreed to work with them and the jazz world at large is richer as a result.

Despite the somewhat unprepossessing album title and the bucolic band name this is a magnificent record, distinguished by captivating themes, peerless musicianship and a high level of group interaction. It opens with Brunborg’s “Badger” which combines an instantly accessible melody with grittier ideas of polytonality. Brunborg’s solo is unhurried but authoritative as Stronen gravitates around him with total conviction, punctuating everything superbly and with his cymbal work particularly impressive. The drummer is constantly busy and involved, but never overbearing. Taylor’s piano chording colours in the gaps and occasionally takes the lead, but his role here is essentially supportive and, as always, inherently tasteful.

The title track also combines a strong theme with an underlying knottiness. Taylor is given more room to stretch out here as he follows Brunborg’s initial tenor solo but like much of Meadow’s music this is essentially an engrossing three way conversation built around an engaging hook.

“Kirstis Tarer” is more spacious and minimalistic, the closest approximation yet to the ECM sound.
It’s also very beautiful combining the romanticism of Taylor’s piano with Stronen’s delicately nuanced but consistently fascinating percussion shadings in a lengthy duet section. Elsewhere Brunborg’s long, melancholy saxophone lines add to the gently sombre atmosphere.

“Tunn Is” (it’s Norwegian for “Thin Ice”) begins with Stronen’s richly atmospheric percussion feature before Brunborg’s appropriately glacial, Garbarek style tenor adds to the fragile atmosphere, subtly shadowed by Taylor at the piano. The piece ends with another solo from Stronen, superbly recorded by Kongshaug with every touch and sound seeming to hang in the air. Here is a master percussionist at work, almost literally painting in sound.

“Meadow”, the tune that gave the name to the trio, at first offers a suitably pastoral atmosphere and yet another gorgeous melody. But Brunborg’s probing solo subsequently explores more challenging territory. Stronen and Taylor respond to his every move with skill and acumen and the piece also contains a sparkling Taylor solo with equally effervescent accompaniment from the drummer. The tune ends as it began on a suitably elegiac note.

Credited jointly to Taylor and Stronen “Amentia” is a brief but fascinating conversation between piano and drums, which I suspect may have been improvised in the studio. Whether “instant composition” or not it chimes in well with the rest of the album.

Stronen’s tune “Will” includes extensive features for both his colleagues, Brunborg’s stoic, gritty tenor sax goes first followed by Taylor who matches these qualities at the piano. Stronen subtly paces the piece from behind the drums.

Brunborg’s final tune “Reven” is sparse and minimalistic, built around a wisp of melody that encourages gentle improvisation,  taking the trio into a freer, less structured mode than on the rest of the album.

Taylor’s sole contribution with the pen is the closing “Ritual”, based in Brunborg’s words “on a sequence of notes, like a 12 tone scale. It is a very interesting construction and it is rubato”. Whatever the mechanics, it is also beautiful and atmospheric. Taylor’s initial motif seems to hang in the air as the trio distil the essence of beauty from Taylor’s ideas. The piano is limpid and crystalline, the saxophone breathy and delicate and Stronen’s mastery of dynamics and texture is as convincing as anywhere else on the album. 

For all the magnificence of the playing there is no grandstanding. Brunborg subtly dominates in his role as chief composer but the performances are all about conversation and interaction. Meadow is essentially a selfless band with the trio members ultimately serving the music itself. Aided by Kongshaug’s unparalleled engineering skills which make them sound great throughout Meadow have come up with a modern classic, contemporary yet timeless. 

 

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